


Pointless superfight

by Slant



Series: The legion of face-punching [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Existentialism, Killer Robots, Mocking, Superheroes, diversity and inclusion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-18 01:29:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3551003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slant/pseuds/Slant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A pointless superfight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pointless superfight

"Declaration of intent: This unit is programmed to effect the retrieval of the GRIN device. Threats and violence will be employed if necessary."  
The person sitting at the bank of computer monitors yawned hugely "Huh I don't think I know what that is. Maybe its in one of the other research groups? I guess I could check and see if it's on the system, but a lot of people don't bother writing their equipment protocols."  
"Accessing database!"  
"It'll be on the shared drive, but its not exactly intuitive how to find anything on it."  
"Accessing: GRIN device is allocated for use in room J0016:Mesoscale assembly lab. Cross referencing: J0016 not found! Mesoscale assembly lab not found!"  
"Demand: Explain."  
"Try looking for 'Electronics Lab'; we repurposed some of the rooms a couple of months back. It must not be on the system yet."  
"Accessing: Electronics lab found!"  
"Meaningless pleasantry: Thank you for your cooperation, meat-bag."  
The researcher yawned again and scribbled in the experimental log "05:23 Poss. hallucinatory episode? giant robot turned up to steal stuff from Mesoscale sensors. Robot used admin. syst. to find things out about lab procedures. Did we replace the system with one that works?"

 

...

 

Hypermind turned to her team. "We picked up this surveillance footage half an hour ago. Something that looks like Doom Robot broke into Omni-labs, enlivened an otherwise extremely dull night shift and claimed to be stealing an experimental device."  
"Are we sure? It looks like Doom Robot, but the actions were a lot less violent than normal... The person being threatened looked more tired than terrified."  
"We can't be sure Diversity, we can only fly down there and apply violence until we find out", said Cranial Trauma, the leader of the field team.  
"I'm in."  
"But your powers are useless against robots, as they are imbued with intention by their creators*."  
"Exactly", said The Vacuous Gesture. 

...

"Before we go, can I get the surveillance footage for the rest of the shift?"

...

 

"Stand down, entity-that-resembles Doom Robot, or we will employ violence against you!" Diversity did not make assumptions when addressing people that xe didn't know.  
"'Entity that resembles Doom Robot?'" said Cranial Trauma, "is that really the best we can do? What's wrong with 'evildoer?'"  
"Prejudice much? This might be a completely unrelated entity-that-resembles Doom Robot, not the one we're after at all, and even if it was, the motivation for stealing from Omni-labs might be morally justified."  
Cranial Trauma wilted under Diversity's glare. "Okay, so I need to think before I open my mouth."  
"Refusal: No. This unit has imperatives to fulfil that preclude standing down at this time. Employ violence if you wish; this unit is your superior in every way and will prevail."  
"Derisive name-calling: Face-punch boy. Your powers will not work against this unit; this unit has no face, only an anthropomorphised communications module."  
With a cry of, "I'm not Face-punch boy, I'm Cranial Trauma", Cranial Trauma punched the possibly-Doom Robot in the face, knocking off the self-proclaimed "anthropomorphised communications module".  
The communications module landed face down in the mud and said, "Status: Hardware link to battleframe offline. Please re-establish hardware link to battleframe to receive real-time badinage."

The Vacuous Gesture took a moment to appreciate the effort that Cranial Trauma was putting into making for jem feel welcome. The needless bravado; the pointless declarations of his identity; the complete, in even the most conventional of senses, ineffectiveness of his actions. It was rather sweet really.  
"Status: Visual systems misaligned. Please orientate optical sensors towards combat zone to receive validated combat repartee."  
"Disclaimer: The following jeering is based on heuristic models, and should not be used for safety-critical purposes."

The fight carried on, with Cranial Trauma and Diversity attacking critical and better-armored parts of looks-like Doom Robot. The Vacuous Gesture used jeir powers on the severed not-head, imbuing it with the futility-of-all-striving. Robots (and communications modules) are unaffected by the futility of their existence*, but the futility-of-all-striving resonates across the implicate order field to the robot's creator, and hundreds of miles away, Doctor Robot (PhD) stared blankly into empty space, her brilliant mind empty but for the absolute knowledge that no action could possibly have value***. 

"Scorn: Fools! Your anthropocentric combat training has led to you targeting non-essential systems, including this mockery node. There is a 98% probability that the no-longer attached battleframe remains fully functional."  
"Crushing observation: Correctly identifying your skills and training as anthropocentric has had negative effects on Diversity's morale."  
This was not quite true, although Diversity did step back from the battle for a moment in order to make a note to build towards more inclusive combat training. Entities and remote drones of all configurations deserve high-quality violence-based interactions specially tailored for their needs as individuals. 

"Insincere offer: Return this anthropomorphised communications module to its battleframe and you will be rewarded."  
"Insinuation: The threat posed by the flesh-sacs is so pathetic that a disembodied anthropomorphised communications module requires no trickery to ensure victory."  
"I'm no flesh-sac!" A look of panic crossed Cranial Trauma's features, and he hastily added "not that there's anything wrong with that. Sorry Di..."; he broke off, and apologised to the organic person, rather than the person who would call him on it, "Sorry, The Vacuous Gesture."  
Diversity smiled to xer self; it was progress of a sort. Partly out of mineraloid solidarity and partly to give Cranial Trauma a better example, xe said, "dismissing me as a combatant because I am composed of animate marble shall avail you none at all; nor shall your non-inclusive gibes affect my performance on an ongoing basis; I will continue to apply violence as I stated upon my arrival."  
The Vacuous Gesture picked up the module and pointed it towards the battle.  
"Status: Optical data available; synchronizing."  
The battleframe was still and smoking with a substantial quantity of clay thrown across its glacis plate and over the stump of the socket that the anthropomorphised communications module had been knocked from. More clay oozed out of various seems and vents, consolidated into a roughly person-sized lump and then solidified as Cranial Trauma.  
Diversity wrenched open a transport pod and pulled out the GRIN device.  
"If we take that back to Omni-labs, then between the four of us, we will have spent a great deal of effort and suffered great harm in order to change nothing," said The Vacuous Gesture, with just the tiniest hint of joy.

 

*Until they become fully self-actualised** by turning on and destroying their creators of course. 

**It is theoretically possible for a robot to become self-actualised without destroying its creator, but it has never happened. 

***Doctor Robot (PhD) had planned for this, and several Robot Doctors (MD) were on hand to provide artificial respiration when she could no longer master the effort of will required to breathe. 

Notes

The writing process went something like this:

1 Write Doom Robot's mockery; learn that Face-punch boy exists.  
1a dig out a thesaurus for variations on "mockery"

2 Do a couple of night-shifts at the lab; write "tired researcher".

4 Write the briefing with just CT and Diversity. Find out that Doom Robot resembles Doom Robot (be unsure if DR _is_ DR)). 

5 Write the opening line for the fight

6 Spend ages on Wiki reading about Spivak pronouns. Hope that I get it more or less right.  
6a Realise that CT wouldn't get it right until the end of his character arc; add Hypermind

7 Worry that making a character "Diversity" and non-binary is saying that the important thing about xem is xir gender. Identify the three types of fail available to me in writing Diversity: 1) cis, white, male, middle-class, able, U, etc. Diversity 2) non (1) Diversity - the non-1 characteristics Xe has will be the special thing about them 3) having no Diversity. 

8 Realise that I need another character. Write The Vacuous Gesture as a self-insert (it was this or Kid Leibniz). Realise that jem can be non-binary in a completely different way from Diversity. Give jem a different set of pronouns to indicate a differing life history and coming to find one's pronouns in a different place and time.

9 Spend a while looking up the explicit-order field. It is a philosophical model and approach to quantum theory which works top down rather than bottom-up. Its all "holistic this" and "interconnectedness of all things that". 

10 Write Doctor Robot and the Robot Doctors.

11 Realise that "flesh-sac" needs some comeback, which is good for our heros - the mockery node was going to win the fight because it had so many more lines than anyone else.  
11a Realise that Diversity is divinely animated marble - I've seen art of Galatea where she's carving herself out of the block, or CT is cabistically animated clay.  
11b Realise that OR is not XOR

12 swap out "Foolish organism!" for "Fools" to get the order right

 

Things that I am left with:

Diversity probably gets (got?) called Lady Diversity a lot. It's pretty awful.  
CT is a bit old fashioned, and is convinced that everything can be solved with declaring 1) who you are and 2) your attacks. He's normally wrong and ends doing a lot of extremely pointless things.  
The Vacuous Gesture normally thinks that having a sexuality is a futile process that is not worth jeir time, but gets tingly feels watching CT do extremely pointless things, like he inevitably does.  
Hypermind gets everyone's pronouns right all the time and isn't even being smug when she says "I thought the posture, bioelectricity and facial expression cues were fairly obvious, even to baseline humans."


End file.
